Nonfiction

FORT LAUDERDALE -- A five-part workshop on writing nonfiction for magazines and books will be given by Stuart McIver at 7 p.m. Wednesdays March 11, 18, 25, April 1 and 8 at the Imperial Point Branch Library, 5985 N. Federal Highway, Fort Lauderdale. The course will track the nonfiction story from idea through research, writing and finding a magazine or book publisher. McIver is the author of seven books, the editor of South Florida History Magazine and a regular contributor to Sunshine magazine`s The Way We Were stories.

For 15 years, James W. Hall was a literary purist, teaching metafictional modernists such as John Barth. In fact, he wrote four such novels, wracking up "a lot of great rejections. " Then, he taught a class on bestselling popular novels - and a light dawned. To his amazement, Hall discovered that all mega-selling novels share a number of distinct characteristics. Setting aside his literary pretentions, he began using them in his own work - embarking on an award-winning career as a crime novelist.

If civilized disagreement is the hallmark of sophistication, the Modern Library's list of its panel's choices for the 100 best nonfiction books will give lots of self-styled literati the chance to prove how sophisticated they are. The list -- limited to books written in English and published in the 20th century -- is absolutely unofficial. The Modern Library, a division of giant publisher Random House, decided last year to draw attention to its line of "classic" reprinted titles by putting together a panel of writers who selected an arbitrary Best 100 works of 20th century fiction.

Bob Graham, one of Florida's most high-profile politicians, now adds novelist to his resume with "Keys to the Kingdom," a political thriller that suggests a 9-11 cover-up. Since retiring from the U.S. Senate in 2005 after three terms, Graham, 75, has served on a number of national committees. He chaired the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and the Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism. He also was co-chair of the 9-11 Congressional Joint Inquiry, which included members of both the House and Senate Intelligence Committees.

This year's Miami Book Fair leans heavily toward nonfiction. Unlike previous years, there are few international prize-winning novelists or poets, while all of the writers featured in the prestigious "Evening With" series, which begins tonight, are authors of recent nonfiction titles. This is less indicative of any trend than a coincidence. It just so happens that a lot of important nonfiction writers were available for the fair this year. Keep in mind that though all book fair events are free, space is often at a premium, both for the "Evening With" presentations and for the signings, readings and panel discussions scheduled for the three-day street fair next weekend.

The romance and lore of the Mafia are so pervasive, it's easy to forget that almost nobody really believed in the existence of organized crime before the infamous Apalachin summit of 1957, when a handful of small-town cops broke up a conference of more than 100 mob bosses. Before then, few books explored organized crime. After all, no less an authority than J. Edgar Hoover denied the existence of the mob; The Untouchables, by Eliot Ness and Oscar Fraley, detailing Ness' famous battles with Al Capone in the late '20s, was not published until 1957.

The Gang That Wouldn't Write Straight: Wolfe, Thompson, Didion and the New Journalism Revolution. Marc Weingarten. Crown. $25. 325 pp. In The Gang That Wouldn't Write Straight, his survey of what used to warrant the name New Journalism, Marc Weingarten demonstrates two things clearly. The first: There is no substitute for reading the classics of this genre firsthand. The second: The writers who are commonly lumped together in this category didn't have that much in common after all. "Was it a movement?"

THE TIME OF OUR TIME. Norman Mailer. Random House. $39.50. 1,286 pp. Although this bulky new omnibus of fiction and nonfiction writings by Norman Mailer is supposed to "offer some hint at a social and cultural history over these last 50 years," it's less a chronicle of the passing parade of American life than a monumental self-portrait, a noisy advertisement for Mailer's own style, persona and obsessions, as they've evolved (or failed to evolve)...

HOOKING UP. Tom Wolfe. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Inc. $25. 293 pp. Somebody told Tom Wolfe he's a conservative and he believed it, and that's too damned bad. Not that there's anything wrong with being a conservative, for you or for me, but for Tom Wolfe, it's worse than a disaster. It's a gelding. At his best Tom Wolfe is an equal opportunity offender; his attacks, whether in best-selling fiction or celebrated nonfiction, are based on an Olympian common sense, a Holy Ghost clarity of sight, delivered with a prose voice that has the thunder of Jehovah.

She hadn't seen the photo since she was 9; a 50-year-old picture of her in a man's woolen hunting shirt, a special joy on her face at the gift her father gave her before going back to war. But the memory had already made it into one of her stories. In other family photos she is 3 and intently trying to read the captions in a book; her daughter is a teen balanced on the back of a horse while she reads a novel; her grandson is a toddler looking with glee at a book his mother is holding. But those memories, too, and the importance of books, were already shot through her own fictional writings.

A Walk in New York. Story and illustrations by Salvatore Rubbino. Candlewick Press. $16.99. 40 pp. Ages 4 to 8. A day-trip to New York is a tall order for a youngster and his dad visiting the Big Apple for the first time. Artist-illustrator Salvatore Rubbino - a London native making his picture book debut - nicely captures the sense of wonder so many others feel when they arrive in America's largest city. There's a lot to pack into a single day - the subways, the Brooklyn Bridge, the grandeur of Lady Liberty, the bustle of Broadway and Times Square, East Side, West Side - and here it's presented with a light, colorful touch that includes a towering foldout of the Empire State Building.

Mystery set in Boca Steven M. Forman is used to new enterprises. Starting with a one-room office, Forman built his seafood marketing firm Jana Brands into a multimillion-dollar business with offices in several countries. He also works for his community. Forman was recently honored by the North End Athletic Associations in Boston and he serves as an advisor to the Police Athletic League of Boca Raton. Forman can now add author to his resume with the publication of Boca Knights (Forge, $24.95)

The subject of memoir came up at the Key West Literary Seminar, where leading novelists have gathered to consider the matter of Historical Fiction and the Search for Truth, and as so seldom happens when creative writers discuss this genre, someone had the sense and courage to condemn it. The memoir, of course, is that bastard literary form, born of the unholy crossbreeding of memory with fiction and marketing. Everyone knows the scandal of James Frey?s A Million Little Pieces, much of which was made up. What?

Jacob Biber has an inverse relationship with Holocaust deniers; the more they spread lies, the more history books he publishes. A detractor named David Irving, he said, once slapped a book down in front of him denying the Holocaust, and it inspired him to write his 1982 memoir, "Survivors." Biber, a Ukranian Jew, is now 93 and plans to publish his 10th nonfiction book by his next birthday. The freedom to share his narrow escape from war-torn West Ukraine with future generations, he remembered, cost him both step-parents, his brother Ben-Zion and 2-year-old son Shalom, who was murdered during a Nazi raid on his hometown of Matzeev.

It's summer reading time, so where can you get deals on books? I'm intrigued by PaperBackSwap.com and TitleTrader.com - Web sites where readers can get free books, not just paperbacks, and pay only the cost of postage. Thing is, in order to get a freebie, you first must offer books you're willing to swap (at least 10 books at PaperBackSwap.com). Also, you need an e-mail account; there are no phone orders. So it may be simpler to shop for summer reading at a local new-and-used bookstore such as Well Read, which is offering a clearance sale throughout the summer at 1338 SE 17th St., Fort Lauderdale, 954-467-8878.

South Florida author Les Standiford pulls no punches in his latest nonfiction tale of greed, big business and the American way. Standiford will discuss Meet You in Hell: Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick, and the Bitter Partnership That Transformed America at noon Saturday at Levenger, 420 S. Congress Ave., Delray Beach. Call 561-274-0904.

Here's a list of some of the local writers taking part in the Miami Book Fair. They will be appearing at the downtown campus of Miami-Dade Community College. For schedule information, call 1-305-237-3032: Dave Barry. Best-selling humorist and Miami Herald columnist. Edna Buchanan. Nonfiction writer and crime novelist who won a Pulitzer Prize while a police reporter for the Miami Herald. Kristy Daniels. Popular novelist - actually the husband-and-wife writing team of Kristy Montee and Sun-Sentinel associate managing editor Dan Norman.

Rex Dendinger II, a retired policeman and budding author, takes a break from writing for a couple of hours every Friday. The Parkland resident reviews the words he's come up with over the course of the week. But he doesn't do it alone. At the Parkland Library's Writers Cafe, Dendinger reads what he has written as his friends listen. They tell him what works and what doesn't. "There are some really talented people out there," Dendinger said. "It is not just about improving what you have written.

King's Gambit: A Son, a Father, and the World's Most Dangerous Game. Paul Hoffman. Hyperion. $24.95. 400 pp. Chess brings out grandeur and brutality in its human players. Paul Hoffman, who's been deeply involved in the game since he was a child, is an intimate observer of - as David Remnick put it in a recent interview with grandmaster Garry Kasparov - "the absolute, singular concentration of a life bent over 64 squares." Hoffman's memoir, King's Gambit, a chronicle of his and others' lives spent at that level of concentration, is as jagged, passionate and methodical as the game itself.